Cover story

The only shelter they can call their own is their desk. They live in their family’s car, or in shelters, or camped out in cold, wet tents, as they try to study, write reports, and pull themselves up. This is their multi-part story, in a Doug Sovern KCBS Cover Story series.

The latest income data shows that about 20 percent of the Bay Area lives in poverty and that figure is rising while local home prices, the stock market, and the incomes of the very rich are soaring to record levels.

The Bay Area has the highest median income in the nation and San Francisco has the fastest-growing gap between rich and poor. That economic inequality is on stark display in the very places where the latest technology boom is transforming the city.

The Bay Area is grappling with an accelerating shift in its socioeconomic structure. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle-class is, simply, disappearing. In a five-part Cover Story series, KCBS’ Doug Sovern investigates just how hard it is for working-class people to make a living and how quickly American dream for advancement is slipping away.

While unemployed job seekers in their 20s find if difficult to find work, those in their 50s are finding it nearly impossible. Research by the Federal Reserve in San Francisco finds that older workers, who are in the ranks of the long-term unemployed, have almost no chance of getting hired.